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The very best methods to fund the NHS | @guardianletters

Michael Meacher claims (Letters, 2 April) that our proposals “kick away” free NHS care at the level of service. Really the opposite: they reinforce this principle. As the Guardian reported on Monday, Solving the NHS Care and Money Crisis proposes numerous hypothecated overall health taxes to tackle the £30bn black hole in the NHS spending budget. Introducing devoted overall health taxes is not a madcap, rightwing thought – the move was actively regarded as by a earlier Labour shadow cabinet. Our proposals would consist of a £10 a month payment from all non-exempted adults, collected with the council tax, to assistance individualised well being MOTs and continuing private help for healthier living. Folks may possibly not like paying a lot more taxes for an powerful NHS, but we would argue that Britain has minor decision, exactly so we can protect the principle of free of charge at the level of use and clinical want.Norman Warner Property of LordsJack O’Sullivan Oxford

• Each NHS medical doctor, every single day, sees a disproportionate quantity of sufferers with sickness caused by poverty and the associates of poverty – smoking, obesity, alcohol, drug use, domestic violence. The NHS ought to be predominantly paid for by individuals whose privilege is to need to have it least. Then it will be there for all of us when we need to have it. This is how tax works. Dr Helen HoltAdvisor doctor, Bournemouth

• Polly Toynbee illustrates this government’s aversion to progressive taxation, regardless of falling revenues and the resulting dereliction of public solutions. I think the fairest way would be for pensioners, like me – the men and women who would benefit most – to spend national insurance coverage. This could also be part of the answer to the issue of social care, which need to be integrated into the NHS.Trevor LashleyArnside, Cumbria